You might not be able to afford to rent an apartment or eat dinner in New York’s trendy Tribeca neighborhood, but, if you’re in the area, you can probably scrape together enough to attend the Tribeca Film Festival, which is going to run from April 23 through May 4. Now, granted, April’s never been known as a film festival month, but are you really going to tell Robert De Niro that it’s a bad idea? Besides, Bobby D and his partners, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, had the best of intentions by founding the festival back in 2002 to bring more people back down to Manhattan following 9/11.

There have been a few recent news items about the festival’s growing pains last year, but the 2008 festival is supposed to be a leaner, meaner event, with more tickets available for normal joes and a more commercial bent to attract more film buyers.

Not that a more commercial film festival is exactly what the industry needs (Tribeca is opening with Tina Fey’s Baby Mama and closing with Speed Racer), but the line-up is pretty intriguing, and who knows? You might end up sitting in the same theatre as De Niro. (We imagine the experience like the Cybil Shepherd date scene in Taxi Driver.)

If you want more information on the event, check out the official website at http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/